Daboub, et al. U.S. Pat. No. 5,109,987 May 5, 1992, incorporated by reference herein, describes a multilevel sorting machine of a type which is now in widespread use in various forms, with specific machines known as DBCS, MLOCR and more recently MLOCR with extended capability that can handle a wider range of mail piece sizes. It is well known in the art that such machines include a mail piece feeder, a transport section which transports a singulated stream of mail pieces from the feeder section on a pinch belt conveyor, and a stacker section which includes a row of stackers equipped with gates that are operated by the control system to divert a mail piece from the passing stream. The divert gates are operated on the basis of scanned address information gathered as the mail piece is entering the transport section from the feeder.
Daboub, et al. is one early example of a multi-level stacker section. The transport section includes a mechanism for routing mail pieces to one of two or more vertical levels on which a row of stacker pockets is located, each level having its own pinch belt transport. There are commonly rows of stacker pockets on both the front and back of the stacker section.
In the development of such multi-level sorters, it was found beneficial to provide shelves or horizontal diverter panels between levels on each side of the sorter. This is presently deemed an essential safety feature for such sorters. It prevents human workers from reaching up into the moving parts of the stacker section on the level above. The present invention relates to improvements in such panels.